


Sleeping Desire

by smalltrolven



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amnesiac Sam Winchester, M/M, Schmoop-filled to the brim., Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:02:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23640517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smalltrolven/pseuds/smalltrolven
Summary: Sam wakes up in Kermit, Texas on Amelia’s front porch. He’s badly beaten and bleeding, with a whole month worth of memories just gone. He finally recalls writing a horrible note for Dean after a fight they’d had on a hunt. Does Sam even have a home to go back to?
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Sam/Dean
Comments: 9
Kudos: 74
Collections: SPN Meant to Be Master Collection





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not my characters, only my words. Written for the 2019 spn-meanttobe for prompt 56, Sleeping Desire.
> 
> “Sara had run away from Alex Stevenson's demands of unquestioning love, but her amnesia made her forget her year away from him. Until she saw the woman who had caused the break up of their marriage. Then shatteringly, everything fell back into place and she saw the caring and protestations of love were all part of the plan to make her stop their divorce. Her parents were in on that, too, constantly trying to bring them together. All of them treated her like a child – they didn't seem to realise that the pain and hurt of the past year had made her grow up into a confident woman, sure of what she wanted. But was she so sure of not wanting Alex?”

When he sees their house, it all comes crashing back in on him. All the pain he was trying to run away from in the first place, losing Dean like that, essentially losing himself. He’d never dealt with it back then, and there’s so much more of it now that he’s been carrying around. No wonder he’s exhausted and forgetting everything. System overload…system collapse…system reboot.

Maybe that’s what this is, a chance at starting over again. He stumbles up the familiar slate pathway and up on to the yellow painted porch. The porch light is on, and he can hear the tv blaring from inside. He tries the front door’s handle, but it’s locked. He takes a chance and knocks.

The next thing he knows, Amelia is helping him get up. He must have collapsed in front of her and then there’s a man too. It must be her husband, right in his face too. All out on their front porch, the one that Sam had painted this ugly yellow. It was ugly then, and it was worse now in its current faded state. It’s been a few years.

“Amelia, we need to call the police, they should definitely handle this,” The man says, what is his name, Sam really should be able to remember, he struggles around in the mixed-up contents he’s got upstairs and comes up with David, no Dan or Don, it’s one of those, definitely starts with a D and is one short syllable.

“No cops, please,” Sam says to no one in particular. He hopes Amelia will stick up for him this one last time. If there ever was a first time.

“This is Sam, the guy I was telling you about. He’s the one who saved me, so you had someone to come home to,” Amelia says, keeping her hand on Sam’s forearm.

Amelia’s husband (Dan or Don or whatever it is?) puts out a meaty hand to shake like this is some normal introduction. Sam forces himself to pull it together enough to shake his hand in as manly a manner as possible. He needs to get the fuck out of there. This was all kinds of wrong coming here, there was no point to it, so why in all the places in the world had he ended up here?

“Sam, is there someone we can call or should we take you to the hospital?” Amelia asks, still squeezing his forearm.

“No, I’m okay, I’ve got to—uh, get back on the road. Gotta get going, go home.” Wait, does he even have a car here? And if so where the fuck is it?

“I really don’t think you should be driving, dude,” Dan (or Don?) says.

“I don’t think you should be telling me what to do, dude,” Sam says, emphasis on the dude. He tries standing up to his full height and squaring his shoulders to emphasize the point.

Amelia steps between them and puts her hand firmly in the middle of Sam’s chest, pushing him back gently, almost enough to make him stumble. “Sam, I just want you to be okay.”

  
“I know…I know that, thanks, Amelia. I am okay, really…mostly I guess. I just need to—go,” Sam says in a mumble. He briefly enfolds her in a hug, glaring at Dan (or Don?) over her shoulder. “Thanks for helping me again, I didn’t mean to mess anything up here.”

Amelia pats him on the back a couple of times and lets him go. “You didn’t mess up anything, Sam. Except for maybe your poor face,” Amelia says, examining the cuts on his face with one gentle hand under the porch light. “I really think we ought to run you over to County General, looks to me like you need more than a few stitches.”

Sam takes a few steps backwards from her and almost wipes out on the porch steps. He steadies himself on the railing, trying to stand up straight. What is wrong with his balance? He’s not drunk, he doesn’t feel drunk at all, just unsteady and unsure. “Nah, I’m just gonna go. Thanks for helping me, it was good seeing you again. Bye, Dan, it was nice meeting you.”

He walks off down the familiar front pathway, the one he’d re-graveled and installed the slate stepping stones when they’d first moved in all those years ago. He hears Dan’s voice say something about, “It’s Don actually.” But it’s not worth re-engaging, he’s got to keep moving forward, and get away, quick, before she figures how messed-up he really is.

The Amelia he knew before would have insisted on taking him to the hospital immediately. She would have hustled him into her car, she wouldn’t have let him just stumble off into the darkness alone, bleeding from all these head wounds. But she’s got Don again, she doesn’t need him like she used to, or who knows if she ever really did. Sam sure as hell doesn’t know, and doesn’t care enough to stick around and force the issue. The more pressing question at the moment is where the fuck is his car? And if he doesn’t have one here, then how did he get all the way here to Kermit?

 _Think, Sam, think._ He rubs at his forehead in-between the sore and still bleeding places trying to put his memory back in order. Step it through, what was the first thing you remember? I was walking down the street looking for Amelia’s house. Ok, what came before that? Pain, lots of it, everywhere all at once. Sam pats himself down, besides the head wounds he’s got at least one broken rib, his knuckles feel like hamburger and his belly feels deeply bruised. Bar fight then? Or monster? Maybe both?

That’s it, monster, what was the monster he and Dean were hunting? It had been some kind of cryptid, on a tear through a small town in where was it…Kentucky somewhere. Wayne County, right there on the edge of the Daniel Boone National Forest. Sam hadn’t been sure about which cryptid it was, and they’d gone in kind of blind because Dean had gotten antsy and insisted they needed to get it before it killed again. He was right, but of course it hadn’t gone well. They’d barely managed to kill the thing, and then they’d had a big fight on the way back to their motel. He remembers coming out of the motel bathroom and finding their room empty. Dean had left, no jacket, no keys, a faint roar of the Impala taking off confirming he was on his own. What else, what else was there?

A car’s headlights washes over him from behind. A familiar voice calls out from the car which is now slowly driving beside him at his not-quite walking, more like shambling pace. “Sam, c’mon get in, at least let me stitch you up at my clinic.”

Sam’s surprised at the relief he feels flooding through him. She still cares, that’s unexpected after how they’d left things. He climbs into her car and relaxes against the seat, glad for the headrest. If this was the Impala he wouldn’t even have one to flop against. The Impala…Dean, where was he? And did he care? After that fight, maybe not?

Sam remembers all of a sudden, a cold wash of fear flooding through him, he remembers every bit of sitting at the scratched formica table, writing a note to leave for Dean in their motel room. Every single poisonous word he’d written is blinking neon warning bright in his mind. This wasn’t him, he didn’t even think these kinds of things much less commit them to paper. But he had.

_Dean,_

_I’m assuming you only left temporarily to blow off steam after our fight, so that if you’re reading this, you’re wondering where the fuck I am. I’ll tell you where—I’m gone. I’m done. As in don’t bother trying to track me down. I can’t do this anymore. You don’t know what you want or need me for, and I can’t tell if I even matter to you at all. So I need to leave._

_Have a nice rest of your life (which probably won’t be too long the way you’re going),_

_Sam_

He could see it, the note scrawled on the top page of a yellow notepad, held down by his cellphone. He had left his cell so that he’d be even more untraceable, so Dean knew that he really meant what he’d written. He could see himself like he was watching a movie, could see himself leaving, not even taking his laptop or anything else. He could see into himself, the feeling of starting over, starting fresh, cutting all ties. He can see himself feeling free and like he could do anything, exhilarated at finally making a clean break. He saw an overhead view somehow, of himself walking out of the motel parking lot and down the side of a dark highway.

Sam came back to himself with a near-sob, why the fuck had he done something like that? How long ago had it been, and how freaked out was Dean at this point?

“You okay, Sam? You in a lot of pain?” Amelia asks from the driver’s side. They’ve pulled into the familiar parking lot of her vet office. The lights are off, but she has the keys of course. “C’mon, let’s get you inside and I’ll check you over.”

“Is it Monday, the third of February?” Sam mumbles as she helps him out of the car.

“No, it’s Saturday, March seventh. And it’s twenty-twenty in case you’re wondering what year. What happened, were you on some kind of bender?”

“Something like that,” Sam mumbles, sitting on the exam table and wincing when she turns on the bright operating lights.

“Oooh, shit, this is way worse than I thought. Can you take it if I stitch you up, or do you need something for the pain first?” Amelia asks, hands gentle on his face turning him this way and that.

“I’m—I’m good, go for it,” Sam says, trying to pull himself together before the sharp pain of the needle hits.

“This is going to scar, Sam. You really should be having this done by a plastic surgeon. I’m just good for stitching up dog bellies where it doesn’t really matter.”

“Doesn’t matter now,” Sam says, thinking that there’s really no one left that cares what the hell his face looks like. “Please, just get it over with.”

Amelia just hums and pats him on the shoulder, her cloud of brown hair puffs out behind her as she turns to get the suture kits ready.

Her patter as she stitches him up is all about her life and Don, and how their now old dog Riot is doing, mostly light stuff, but all about how well she’s gotten her life together without him. It isn’t until she’s done stitching his face together that she finally tells him.

“I waited for you, you know. At the place where we said we’d meet? I waited for two whole days, just hoping like the complete idiot I am. And then you didn’t show, and I made myself move on like I guess you wanted me to,” Amelia says with a grimace at herself.

“Good, that’s good, I’m glad,” Sam says, trying not to meet her eyes. He’s so relieved that she’s moved on. He doesn’t have the bandwidth to deal with her issues on top of his own.

“It didn’t work though, the moving on part. I mean…I guess I fake it well enough to keep Don mostly happy, but I’d honestly rather…”

“Rather what?” Sam asks, not really caring what she says next. It doesn’t have anything to do with his life or what he cares about, because he’s most definitely moved on.

“I probably shouldn’t say it, but I’d rather just take off with you and start over,” Amelia admits, caressing the skin of Sam’s neck. She disguises it as wiping the blood off, but that’s what it is. Sam can tell by the way her breathing changes, he remembers how she’d get.

Sam sits up and starts to shuffle away on the exam table. She stops him and leans in for a kiss. He lets her but doesn’t kiss her back.

“Oh…oh, no,” Amelia says, turning away from him and covering her mouth like she’s wiping him away.

“Amelia, listen, it’s complicated, okay? I made a choice, I moved on, and I’ve been happy, as happy as I ever have been. And I hoped…well I’d hoped you were too,” Sam says, hating that he has to make it all better for her on top of everything else. It’s the least he can do to pay for the free stitches. He’d thought he loved her at one point, and maybe he really had. It was always hard to tell when Dean was always there taking up all the space in his heart and his head.

“I really can’t fuck things up more than I already have, so why don’t I drop you off at your car or the bus station or whatever,” Amelia says, still not turning back around to face him. She’s doing that hug yourself thing, he can see her shoulders are shaking, and he doesn’t—no he can’t fucking deal with her tears right now. He needs to get back to Dean, try to take it all back, undo it, that’s the only thing that matters.

“That’s okay, I’m not parked too far away from here. I’ll just get out of your hair, thanks again,” Sam says, trying to get out the door before this goes any further.

She shuffles around in a drawer and throws some stuff in a small plastic bag. “Here’s some antiseptic wipes, bandages and a course of antibiotics. Take care of yourself, Sam.” Her big eyes rove over his face looking for any hint of caring, but he’s got nothing left over for her anymore. Not even enough energy left to put on a show in this moment. It’s better if she knows that.

“Thanks, Amelia, I never deserved someone like you,” Sam says, and this time he actually makes it through the door and out into the cool night. The light breeze feels good moving across his face as he speed-walks out of her office’s parking lot and out of the glow of the streetlights.

He watches as Amelia’s car pulls out of the lot and she speeds away into the darkness. He feels such relief he almost laughs, except his face hurts too much. Sam pats at his jean pockets and is glad to find he at least has his wallet. There’s some cash and a few credit cards. But no car keys, and no cell phone. He recalls again that he’d left his cell behind in that Kentucky motel room, on top of the note he’d written Dean.

Dean would be doing what at this point? Would he still be in Kentucky a month later, or would he have driven back home to the bunker? Does Sam even get to call it home after what he’d written?

Sam walks towards the closest bright lights, hoping for a convenience store with a cell phone for sale that he has enough cash to buy. There is one a few blocks away, an enormous Buc-Ee’s, thank all the gods and goddesses. He blinks at the harsh overhead fluorescent lights inside, but quickly finds a display of cheap cell phones. He's happy to fork over extra for one that claims it comes pre-charged. Along with a few Five-Hour energy bottles and a nut-bar at the counter, it comes to more than the cash that he has on hand. He takes a chance and swipes one of the credit cards through the cash register and is relieved that it still works. Not like he’d really thought Dean would cut him off or anything—well maybe he’d thought that briefly.

He’s been gone for more than a month. Either Dean hasn’t bothered tracking him via the use of their credit cards, or Sam hasn’t been using them—but he’s been living how exactly? Sam’s memory is stubbornly blank on that. Really the last thing he remembers is seeing himself from overhead walking away from the motel in Kentucky, then awakening when he saw Amelia’s house. And he’d only woken up because it had been their house. As in a familiar place, the last home he’d known before the bunker. How he had gotten from Kentucky to Texas, and what he’d done in-between is still a complete black-box mystery at this point.

He sits outside the Buc-Ee’s at one of the tables where people can eat their pre-made sandwiches and chips and enormous sodas when pulling off the nearby highway. He downs two of the Five-Hour energy bottles and un-boxes the phone. It immediately turns on, with full bars of charge and full bars of cell service. He takes a deep breath and dials Dean’s phone number. It rings several times and goes over to voice mail. The wash of relief coursing through him, just at hearing his brother’s voice on the message reminds him of all those times he’d done just this when he’d lost Dean to the Leviathans. How he’d called his number over and over again just to hear him say. “Hey, lucky you, you’ve reached Dean Winchester, do your thing.” Every single time, the ‘Hey’ at the beginning had made his stomach swoop with hope that it was actually Dean picking up for real.

Now it was beeping in his ear and he has to say something, has to come up with a message to leave Dean.

“Hi, Dean, it’s me. I’m in Texas, and I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know why I wrote you that note in Kentucky either. I’m not sure of anything, except I need to talk to you. Call me.”

He hangs up and sets the phone on the table next to the small empty bottles, willing it to immediately ring with Dean calling him back. He doesn’t have any of Dean’s other phone numbers memorized, or Castiel’s either. Curse of modernity and all, expecting our devices to remember for us. Sam can feel the energy drinks buzzing through him and downs the other two. He follows it up with the nut-bar to have something for his stomach to hopefully stop growling at him.

As the nut bar and energy drinks fizzle in his stomach he looks up the bus schedule to get back to the bunker. It’s going to be a long one, like twenty hours. But it’ll be worth it, if Dean’s there to come back to.

Sam looks up at the night sky, the stars not really visible through all the gas-station lighting and sends out his silent plea. “Please, Dean, please.” It's worth a try, sometimes it’s worked in the past, not that he’s ever told his brother that of course.

The phone rings. It's Dean’s number on the screen.

He picks it up, hand shaking with a rush of emotion, “Dean?”

“Hey, just got your message that you’re in Texas. You okay?”

No Sam or Sammy coming from Dean, what does it mean? “Uh…yeah, I’m fi—no, I’m not fine, not really. I’m in Kermit and I don’t know how I got here or why I left.”

“I see…you got money to get home?” Dean asks, short and to the point.

“Yeah, I mean the credit card just worked, it’s how I bought this phone. I can get a bus up to Belleville, it leaves in the morning. That’s the closest I can get to Lebanon. Can you pick me up over there? According to the Greyhound website, it’ll take me twenty hours.”

“Nah, I’ll just drive down and get you there in Kermit,” Dean says. “That’s only like, what maybe ten hours.”

The relief Sam feels makes it hard to speak. “I…thanks, I’m at the Buc-Ee’s, it’s hard to miss.”

“I’ll be there in ten, Sammy, don’t move,” Dean says.

“Thanks, Dean,” Sam says, the relief turns to something else when he hears Dean use his nickname.

“Call me if anything changes,” Dean says.

“It okay if I call you while you’re driving?” Sam asks, so damn needy, but he can’t help it. It’s going to be a long and lonely ten hours.

“Yeah, of course, Sammy, call whenever. I’ll see you soon, huh?” Dean says.

“Yeah, bye, Dean. Thanks for…” Sam trails off, not sure whether to say ‘for forgiving me’ or ‘for giving me a pass’ or what, because he’s still not sure what really happened in Kentucky.

“It’s all good, I’ll explain when I get there,” Dean says.

“Okay, bye,” Sam says, still not wanting to hang up.

“I’m hanging up so I can get my shit together and leave,” Dean says, hitting the button as he chuckles.

Hearing that familiar chuckle makes Sam feel a million times better. It was all good, Dean wasn’t just saying that, he had meant it. It was going to be a long ten hours sitting here wondering what he’d done for a month.

A few hours later he’s finishing off a breakfast burrito when a shadow falls over his table. Sam looks up and sees a man that looks familiar but he can’t place him.

“Sam, you’re still here?” the man asks.

“Who are you?” Sam asks, the man’s face looks surprised and then wary. Sam realizes he’s seen his picture before, it had been on Amelia’s desk. “Oh hey, you must be Don, I remember seeing you in Amelia’s pictures. It’s nice to finally meet you,” Sam says extending a hand to shake, then remembers he’s already been introduced, a few hours ago, last night at the house, this man’s house, where he lives with Amelia. Sam’s short term memory is apparently shot to shit also.

Don doesn’t take Sam’s offered hand to shake, just frowning at it instead. “Listen, I don’t know what the fuck you’re trying to do here, dude. But she chose me, and that means you need to stay the hell away from her.”

Sam knows for a fact that Don is wrong, that Amelia had chosen him actually, but he doesn’t want to make things worse. He stops himself from saying what he wants to and does the right thing instead. “I know, Don, I’m not here to steal her from you, I got in a bad fight, I mean—obviously look at me. And I basically woke up here in Kermit, on your front porch. Probably because it was familiar, who really knows though. I’m sorry, please don’t take it out on her.”

“I wouldn’t—why would you say that? I’m not taking anything out on her, I love her, I love Amelia,” Don says.

“Good, that’s good, she always talked about you, how much you’d loved her. We got each other through a hard time, I thought I’d lost someone too. It all worked out, we’re with the people we’re supposed to be with. Well, I was up until pretty recently. But it’s all good, I’ll be out of town in a few hours, and I won’t be back, okay?”

“Okay, that’s good, Sam. I…uh, I’m sorry for being a dick about it,” Don says.

“Like I said, it’s all good, dude, I get it. She’s a woman worth fighting for,” Sam says, conscious of re-using Dean’s recent phrase, ‘it’s all good’, even though it’s really really not.

“She is, she really is worth it. Just thinking about her, coming back to her, when I was stuck in an Afghanistan POW camp, that’s what got me through.”

“I’m really glad you came back to her, Amelia only deserves good things,” Sam says.

“Just, don’t come back again. She gets this look when she talks about you, and I…” Don trails off, and Sam understands that this guy knows, deep down he knows that he was Amelia’s second choice and that Sam was number one.

“I swear I won’t, Don. She’s all yours, I’ve got my person, and she’s got you.”

“Your person, is she coming for you?” Don asks.

“He is, yeah, he’s driving to pick me up, it’s going to be another eight hours of waiting though,” Sam says.

“You should come home with me for lunch. Amelia’s at work, but her lunch break is pretty soon, and you can hang out with Riot for a while.”

“That’s a really nice offer, Don. But I don’t want to get in her face again, it’s probably better for everyone if I just hang out here and wait until my ride comes.”

“I insist,” Don says, pulling Sam up from the table with an arm under his elbow. Sam scrambles to pocket his new cellphone.

Sam goes against his better judgement and goes along with him instead of resisting. Even though it is really weird that just a moment ago, Don had been telling him to leave and never come back and now he all of a sudden wants him to hang out at his house? Sam’s wish to see Riot again wins out, he’s really missed having an awesome dog like him, and it was still hours until Dean was going to even be close to getting to Kermit.

“Sure, why not, I didn’t get a chance to say hi to Riot last night,” Sam says.

He follows Don back to his vehicle, an older Ford F-150. “Was this your truck before?”

“Yeah, my dad kept it running while I was gone,” Don says, turning onto their street.

All the houses are so familiar, Sam remembers walking Riot past them at least twice a day, waving to neighbors and meeting other dogs. It had been a little suburban fantasy for a few months. He’d probably been more attached to that than to Amelia herself. Sad but true.

Don unlocks the front door and waves Sam in ahead of him. The door is closed, the hallway dark and something hard hits Sam on the back of the head and he’s gone—again.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam comes to slowly, head aching like there are spikes driving into his brain. He doesn’t open his eyes or change his breathing, uses his other senses to figure out where he is. He can feel the rope around his wrists and ankles, he’s upright, tied to a chair. It smells like a basement, there’s a little dampness and the smell of laundry detergent, the specific scent of the one Amelia had always insisted on using. Probably in Amelia’s house then. There are no sounds, until he hears water running in the laundry sink, it’s hitting metal, some kind of bucket he guesses.

There’s no Amelia, and no Riot. It’s just him and Don in the basement.

“I know you’re awake, Sam,” Don says, grunting with the effort of hefting the large bucket out of the sink. “Amelia’s out of town on her rural rounds overnight, so let’s get the party started.”

“What are you doing, Don?” Sam asks, trying to remain calm.

“I’m getting payback,” Don says in a monotone.

“Payback for what?” Sam asks, getting even more concerned as he can see Don’s face, blank and expressionless.

“For you taking my woman away from me,” Don says.

“I didn’t though, she’s still yours, like you said, she chose you. Please, just let me go, I won’t come back,” Sam says.

“I don’t believe you. You can beg all you want, but I’m getting what I’m due,” Don says in a flat voice, devoid of all humanity. He turns on some loud thrash metal on a boom box, presumably to drown out the noise that Sam will be making.

Sam’s been here and done this way too many times. He knows he just has to endure. Most human torturers are very uncreative, no one ever comes close to what Lucifer and Michael had been able to come up with in the Cage. He lets himself dissociate and slips into an observer mode. It frustrates Don, because no matter what he throws at Sam, he doesn’t get any responses like he wants. Waterboarding, slicing him with sharp knives, ripping out the stitches Amelia had given him, even a few pulled-out toenails, it’s all so routine, boring even. Sure, Sam is bloody and beaten, but that’s just part of how it goes.

“I don’t love her, I don’t know if I ever did, she was just a substitute. Just like I was a substitute for you I guess. Don, she really loves you,” Sam says, voice even and sure. He’s proud of himself for not begging or falling apart or telling the truth Amelia had spilled last night.

“No—no she doesn’t, she still loves you. It’s different, she’s different, you fucked up everything, Sam!” Don yells.

“You learned how to do all this in Afghanistan, because they did it to you. I get it man, I do. I’m sorry it happened this way, you didn’t deserve this, neither did she. I’ve only ever loved one person, and I shouldn’t have made her think I could love her like that.”

“I can,” Don says.

“Then do it, she told me last night that she loves you,” Sam says.

“She did?” Don lowers the knife he was raising towards Sam’s forearm.

“Yeah, and I told her I was glad for her, for both of you. We all ended up back with the person we love the most in the whole world, right?”

Sam smiles as he sees Dean sneaking in, and hitting Don from behind. He has no idea if Dean heard what he’d just said to Don. There’s a scuffle and he can’t see what happens and he kind of forgets to worry about it.

“Dean? How’d you know where to find me?” Sam asks as Dean’s cutting him loose from the restraints.

“You didn’t call me while I was driving like you said you wanted to. And you weren’t waiting at the Buc-Ee’s like we said, so I knew something was up. I found her address listed in the phone book. Figured something had gone down to make you not call me. Didn’t think it’d be the army man though.”

“You didn’t kill him, right?” Sam asks, peering over Dean’s shoulder at the still figure on the basement floor. He can see the glimmer of blood all over Don’s face and the cement too.

Dean growls under his breath. “I should have, given what he did to you, but no, I just knocked him out. I’m going to tie him up in the place he had you here in the basement. She’ll find him when she gets back, and he’ll probably tell her you did it to him.”

“That’s fine, turns out she was still having trouble moving on,” Sam says, helping Dean secure Don to the chair. He pulls the ropes extra tight because he can’t help himself, the guy was just torturing him after all.

“I’m not one bit surprised,” Dean says, pulling Sam up to standing and herding him up the basement stairs.

“Oh because I’m just that lovable and unforgettable, huh?” Sam says over his shoulder, so glad to be getting out of here with Dean.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Dean says.

Sam pauses on the front porch as he closes the door behind him, not sure what to do with that comment. “I don’t know what happened, Dean. I remember the note I left you back in Kentucky, and walking out of the motel room, and that’s it. A month later I woke up on this porch, and I was all beaten up. Amelia stitched me up.”

“Let’s just get out of here, we’re going to have to stop and get you re-stitched again.”

“Can we just go home and you do it there?” Sam says, uncaring that he’s whining.

“It’s your face, Sam, I don’t want you to have a scar if I can help it,” Dean says.

“I’ll just grow my hair longer or something,” Sam says.

“Sam,” Dean says.

“Fine, whatever, but you do it,” Sam says. “You’re better at sutures than most ER docs.”

“I am, but what about the rest of this, what he did to you, I ought to go back and do the same to him.”

“He was just venting, hope he gets some help from the VA or whatever, the dude has issues, which is understandable after being a POW for two years.”

“Doesn’t excuse what he did to you though,” Dean says.

“No, it doesn’t excuse it, but I’m saying that I understand it, from personal experience.”

Dean clears his throat, obviously thinking about all the personal experience his little brother has with torture. “I still think you’re being way too forgiving,” Dean says. “In my opinion.”

“And you’re not? Dean you just drove ten hours to pick me up when I left you with that horrible note more than a month ago.”

“It’s because it wasn’t you, Sammy,” Dean says.

Sam falls asleep in the Impala, not caring that there’s no headrest. And Dean doesn’t explain the rest until after they’re in a motel outside of Lubbock, pizza on the way, cold beers uncapped. He’s holding Sam’s face, checking the damage and digging in their med kit for the container of sutures.

Sam watches his brother over at the sink, washing his hands like a surgeon, taking care to scrub under his fingernails. He can see Dean’s face in the mirror, and the bags under his eyes are truly impressive. He hasn’t been sleeping, probably not much since Sam disappeared.

Dean turns and sees Sam watching him, he smiles, putting on a brave big brother face mostly out of habit. But Sam saw how his own face looks, he’s practically skeletal, and with all those cuts, his face is seriously messed up. It’s going to take a lot of work to stitch him back together. But that’s what Dean does, and that’s what Sam needs.

“You want a pill before I start?” Dean asks, handing him one from the med kit.

Sam grabs for Dean’s duffel and pulls out the whisky bottle. He uncaps it and drinks down a mouthful or two with the pill. It burns a familiar fiery path down his throat. He looks up at his big brother standing over him with that concerned look on his face. Sam feels his eyes well up with tears that he didn’t expect.

Both of Dean’s hands are holding his face then, thumbs swiping the tears away from Sam’s cheeks. “You’re okay, Sammy. You’re right here with me.”

Sam can’t help the relieved sob that he lets out, he closes his eyes and lowers his head, butting it into Dean’s stomach. Dean’s hands rub gentle circles on his shoulders. “I got you, little brother, don’t worry, I got you.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam mumbles into the soft flannel shirt covering his brother’s belly. He wishes he had enough energy to lift his arms and wrap them around Dean’s waist.

Dean leans back a little and one hand goes under Sam’s chin, gently tipping it up. “You have nothing to be sorry about. You are not going to believe what happened. I’ll tell you the whole thing while I’m stitching you up, okay?”

Sam lets the weight of his head sink into Dean’s hold and then he nods. Dean lets go to pick up the suture kit and Sam takes a deep breath in, filling himself up with the comforting and familiar smell of his brother.

“So you remember the cryptid we were hunting, right?”

Sam nods just before Dean takes his first stitch.

“You were right about it being related to djinn. All the people that were missing in the town had blown up their lives in a spectacular way before they disappeared. It turns out that the thing had a poison that made people want to get away from everyone they loved. It then would make them forget their previous lives or even who they were if they got enough of the poison. It was basically a way to isolate people so it could easily feed.”

“So I got stung?”

“Yeah, but since we killed the thing, you at least didn’t get the life force sucked out of you.”

“I blew up my life, lost my memory and myself, but at least I didn’t die, got it.”

“That note you left me was the main clue that you’d been stung. I mean, the fight we had wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, and sure sometimes we overreact to stuff, but I wasn’t buying it that you were gone for good.”

“God, I’m so sorry, Dean.”

“I’ve been searching for more than a month, Sammy. I had nothing to go on, you didn’t have your phone or use any of our credit cards. You just disappeared off the map.”

“I wonder where I was, and how I ended up in Kermit on Amelia’s porch? There’s some random flashes of stuff, but none of it makes sense.”

“There was the guy, remember, the one we rescued? I talked to him a couple of days ago and he said his memories came back in a very strange way. The least important ones resurfaced first, the guy didn’t remember his wife of thirty years until just this week.”

“That explains why I ended up in Kermit instead of Lebanon.”

“I’m guessing you were probably pool hustling to survive. Most of this non-Don related stuff looks like classic bar-fight injuries to me.”

“Yeah, I figured it was a bar fight given my hamburger knuckles,” Sam lifts his right hand and tries to flex his fingers. Dean takes his hand and examines it closely under the light. He whistles softly under his breath when he sees the state of Sam’s knuckles.

“Can you move all the fingers? C’mon, show me,” Dean says.

Sam complies, making a fist even though bending his fingers is excruciating.

“Well, probably no tendon damage, that’s good news, right? Any sharp pain, like a broken bone, or is it just the skin?”

Sam flexes and stretches his hand, there’s some deep bruising, but nothing sharp, the skin is the issue. “Just the skin, this is stupid, let me do it myself.” He tries to grab the box of bandaids out of the med kit and fumbles it.

Dean picks the box up and digs for the bendy-knuckle bandaids they always keep in stock. “Did I come all this way just to watch you try to put bandaids on your own freaking right hand, no I did not, but if that’s what you really want—go for it.”

“I could have taken the bus,” Sam says with a pout, sticking his hand out on the bedside table so Dean can apply the bandaids.

“Dude, you wouldn’t have been on the bus, you’d still be tied to that chair, with that asshole doing who knows what else to you,” Dean says.

“You’re…you’re right. I’m just sorry you had to drive all this way.”

“Hearing what you said to that asshole in his basement, I’m feeling…no, now I know it was worth the trip.”

“What’d you hear?” Sam asks, struggling to remember what just happened a few hours ago in Amelia’s basement.

“You were talking about how you’d both ended up with the right people,” Dean says.

“I remember, I said we ended up with the person we each love most in the world, yeah,” Sam says.

“You said that to someone, about me, and I happened to hear it. But I didn’t know, if you were just laying it on to get to him or if that—if you meant…aw, never mind,” Dean trails off and steps away, his hand went to the back of his neck, in the familiar self-comforting give-away.

“I meant it like you thought, Dean. Did you hear the part about how I was happy, the happiest I’ve been in years?”

Dean nods.

“That was about you too, in case you’re wondering,” Sam says. “Listen, I know this is messed up, and I don’t deserve you just letting me back in after what I did, but I hope you will.”

“You’re back in, of course you are, you were never out. What are you really saying here?”

“I mean…I guess I hope you can still trust me,” Sam says.

“Sammy, it wasn’t the real you leaving me like that. I know you wouldn’t do that to me, it was that thing’s poison.”

“That’s…thank you,” Sam says in a whisper, he can feel the tears start to well back up in his eyes and he struggles to hold them back.

“Hey, c’mon now, let’s get this finished up, pizza should be here soon. Where else are you hurting?”

Sam gestures at his torso. Dean unbuttons Sam’s bloody and ripped-up flannel and carefully takes it off over his injured hands. Sam shivers with the coldness in the room, and the feeling of Dean’s hands ghosting over him so close to his skin. Dean gets up and turns the room heater on. There’s a knock at the door and Sam guesses it’s the pizza delivery, he misses most of that when he falls asleep or passes out from the pain and the whisky and everything else.

Sam wakes up to the lovely feeling of being warm for the first time in ages. He’s on a soft bed, under some scratchy sheets in just a t-shirt and boxers. His back is the warmest and he realizes it’s the warmth of another person. He knows who he wishes it to be, but he doesn’t think he’s that lucky. There’s an arm draped over him and he can see the hand, familiar blunt fingertips, strong looking. He is just exactly that lucky.

There’s another hand tucked under him, under his head and the pillow. He can move his face and brush his lips against it, Dean will never have to know. Besides he’s the one being the cuddle monster. He kisses Dean’s hand, more than once, wishing he had the guts to do it when it counted. There’s a sharp intake of brief behind him and then a gust when it blows out, warm against the back of his neck.

“It was a long month,” Dean says in a quiet, shaky voice.

“I don’t mind it, I think I actually got some real sleep,” Sam says, pressing his body back into alignment with Dean’s. It’s impossible to mistake his brother’s reaction for anything else. “What’d I miss last night?”

“Some of the worst pizza I’ve ever had, and nothing worth talking about on the tube.”

Sam can see the now empty whisky bottle in the trashcan. “Can we go home, I’d rather…uh do this there,” Sam says, turning around in Dean’s arms to face him.

“Do what?” Dean asks, face creased from the pillow, hair spiking up all over the place. In other words, adorable.

“I want to take you to bed, Dean,” Sam says. “Be with you, how we both want. But I need it to be at home—our home.”

Sam can hear Dean swallow, the click in his throat audible in the quiet room. “It’s going to be a long drive, we better get going.”

He leans in and presses his lips to Dean’s, it’s warm and wet and delicious, the sleeping desire now awakened between them. It’s unstoppable once they start, everything is in motion. Sam’s skin feels like he’s going to be unable to hold it all inside.

“You’re right, we should do this at home,” Dean murmurs against his lips. “It’s gonna be a long drive though.”

Sam’s shocked when he feels Dean’s hand in his boxers, holding him, gentle at first and then a real grip, a smooth rhythm. He tries to respond, but bending his knuckles doesn’t work, instead he pulls Dean’s hips into his, pressing them together and grinding.

Dean gasps with the extra contact and strokes Sam even faster. “C’mon, Sammy.”

Sam does just that, coming long and hard all over Dean’s hand and wrist. Dean surprises him by flopping back and using the mess on his hand to slick himself up, his hand flying. Sam watches Dean’s face, their eyes locked as Sam wills him to let go.

“C’mon, Dean, your turn.”

Dean does just that, coming all over his own belly. Sam’s hand immediately lands in the mess, painting designs and sigils into his brother’s skin. He licks his fingers clean and laughs when Dean’s jaw drops open.

“Good god, that’s the hottest thing I think I’ve ever seen,” Dean says in an awed voice.

“Better get me home then, huh?”

Dean’s answer is to roll over onto Sam and press their bodies together, his face landing in the crook of Sam’s neck. There are words being said, and Sam wishes he could make them out. He sends that wish to Dean with everything he has left in him. _Say it, please, c’mon just say it_.

Sam knows he got the message when Dean presses himself up, staring down into Sam’s face. “How lucky are we, huh? You, me and we finally get this.”

“Finally, yeah,” Sam says, pulling Dean back down. There hasn’t been a knock from housekeeping yet, so that can take a little more time. After all the time they’ve waited to go here, and do this with each other, taking a few minutes to revel in it all seems like a good call.

_The End_


End file.
